


we on that hot love and emotion

by aceofdiamonds



Series: is that such a stretch of the imagination? [3]
Category: Gossip Girl, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crossover, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 13:47:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7620715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Honestly, she could take or leave the sea, or the ocean, whatever one this small part of the world bleeds into. But she likes the idea of lying on the beach, the sun high in the sky and hot on her skin, and Harry, this brand new person in her life, his body on the sand beside her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we on that hot love and emotion

**Author's Note:**

> i'm jumping about the series now so this is going to be part two, no, part three, not long after they meet. title is from adidas by little mix

 

 

Ten days into their friendship, relationship, _fling_ , whatever you want to call it, Blair and Harry get bored of the walking around town and the sex and the pale blue walls of Blair’s suite.

Well, not _bored_ , exactly, the sex in particular is something to write home about, but it’s time for a change. Blair isn’t one for sticking to a routine for so long it becomes known. She likes to switch things up.

“The beach, Blair?” Harry asks, leaning back so he’s stretched out along her bed. Blair likes how he looks in her bed, all crooked glasses and lazy smile. She sits cross-legged beside him, her knees resting against the jut of his hip, and she nods as she traces her nail along a scar carving along his stomach. Harry huffs a small laugh, skin moving under her finger as his body shifts with the sound. “I didn’t think you liked the beach.”

“You hardly know me, Harry,” she says, raising onto her knees to lean up and kiss him, taking this as a way of proving her point. She doesn’t do this with men she barely knows -- spend day after day in their company, soaking up every bit of them, throwing parts of her back, sharing. “I love the sea.”

Honestly, she could take or leave the sea, or the ocean, whatever one this small part of the world bleeds into. But she likes the idea of lying on the beach, the sun high in the sky and hot on her skin, and Harry, this brand new person in her life, his body on the sand beside her.

His hand finds hers where it’s resting on his chest and he pulls her gently closer until he can lift his head and kiss her. He likes kissing. Chuck was never one for kissing when he could get something else and Louis kissed her more because he knew she liked it, not out of an enjoyment of his own. Dan, well, Dan loved kissing, sometimes so much so that hours would go by and all that was missing was their shoes and Blair’s top before they actually got any further.

Harry likes kissing for the sake of kissing. He likes to tease her mouth, likes to place his lips on every part of her body, laughing into her when she squirms impatiently. Blair’s only known him for ten days but she knows the way to his mood through the way he kisses; when he’s upset his mouth seeks hers like he’s flailing underwater and he needs an anchor and when he’s happy he’s all lips, sliding them along hers wet and desperate, those little groans and bursts of laughter making their way from his throat to hers.

He kisses with everything he’s got but then he takes that feeling of anticipation and tugs them past it, his fingers pushing into Blair as his teeth nip at her neck, his tongue licking over her broadly, desperately, a kiss to her thigh enough to have her shaking, her muscles clenched with the need for him to give her _more more more_.

She can play it back. She’s always loved the thought of kissing, ever since she was a little girl and she would watch all the stars in the movies have their big romantic scene. She would stand in front of the television with her dolls in her hand and she would think how nice it would be to have someone do that with her one day. And then she got Nate, her built in boyfriend and all her wishes came true.

She loves kissing. Sure, she loves the sex too, but sometimes that can get built up and built up and everything ends up being anti-climactic but with kissing, it’s so intimate from the moment someone leans in. Blair never used to understand how Serena could kiss so many boys without thinking of what these people now meant to her, the connection she had with them. Blair’s never really grown out of that.

She realises she’s being distracted by kisses here because Harry doesn’t seem to want to go to the beach but when his hand cups her neck and draws her in even closer she follows him down, hand reaching out to brace herself on the bed beside him.

 

.

 

They make it to the beach two days later.

Because it’s Italy and the weather is dependable, the sun is shining high in the sky as they emerge from the hotel suite, just like Blair imagined it.

“It doesn’t get hot like this in Britain,” Harry says, hand raking through his hair, sweat already clinging to him.

This stage they’re at, of learning about each other, the good and the bad, can be competitive at times. Blair likes to tell outsiders that New York City is the best place in the world even though at the moment she feels like she’s been spat out of it and thrown across the ocean. “Manhattan is manageable,” Blair says, reminiscing of summers at the Hamptons, of giggly barbeques with Serena, sneaking sips from their moms’ wine glasses, keeping their gazes directed at the sky and at each other, boys the furthest from their minds. In the city the heat can be stifling and sometimes even Blair finds the high buildings suffocating as they pull in the sun and trap it between everyone’s skin. “We have air-conditioning everywhere,” she adds.

“Is that a dig at Britain, Blair?” Harry laughs.

Blair pulls her hair over her shoulder and looks up at him, eyes blinking behind her sunglasses. “Of course. You Brits have no common sense when it comes to the weather.”

“I lived in a castle for six years and somewhere else entirely for ten years before that,” Harry tells her, referring to the Hogwarts she’s already heard both so much and so little about. “My views on central heating are skewed.”

“This is so absurd,” Blair says, shaking her head and smiling because how is it possible that she’s here in Italy with someone who can do magic and who lived in a castle? She can cope with strange and unusual, she’s one of the best at it, and this is, well, this is the most she thinks it’s ever going to get.

“ _You’re_ absurd,” Harry replies, eyes sparkling behind his glasses with that burst of glee Blair has seen a couple of times now. He reaches out for her hand, tangling their fingers together, and then he pulls her against his body in a gesture far more easy and altogether familiar than should work at this so early stage of their meeting.

“You’re a child,” Blair sighs, squeezing his hand. She likes how open and easy he’s been with her, always up for a laugh, always ready for some fun, but she’s also had glimpses of another side of him, the side that caused him to run halfway across Europe away from his problems at home. Sometimes she catches it on his face when his brow furrows and his bottom lip twists under the bite of his teeth and she realises that no, he isn’t some manic pixie boy who dropped from the sky to make her feel a little less shitty about herself. They’ve covered the basics in that twisty, almost cathargic, round of questions a few days but Blair yearns for more. “Have you been to the beach before?” she asks as she replays what she's learned of him.

Something twitches in his expression when he says, “Not really, no. One time I went to the seaside --” but he stops that before he begins and jumps to the next. “We had an Auror assignment near Brighton once and when it was over a few of us went to a cafe by the sand but that's as close as I've got.”

The thing is, Blair doesn't care that much but even as a Manhattan kid the beach always meant paradise, that paradise later handed to Blair in the form of the Hamptons. Like she said, she can take or leave the sand that gets everywhere and the sweatiness of the sun but there's something about the smell of the sea and the freedom that comes with being by the water that pulls her back time and time again. Knowing that Harry hasn't had that, she adjusts the rim of her hat, squeezes his hand, and leads the way to fixing it.

 

.

 

It’s a classy beach, of course. This is a classy place. They rent sunbeds and order cocktails with too much alcohol and huge pieces of fruit wedged in beside the umbrellas. Blair sprays on her suncream and when she gestures for Harry to do her back he complies with slow, gentle strokes, his fingers stroking her neck as he works it around her shoulders. There’s probably a spell for this, Blair guesses, but Harry doesn’t attempt it. Not with so many Muggles around.

Instead Blair distributes the cream and rubs it in, hands skating over his scars, the scars she knows the stories behind now. He runs hot, his skin warm under her hands, all that energy thrumming inside. He feels how she feels.

God, she needs to relax.  

They lie with their sunglasses perched on their noses for the first couple of hours and then Harry gets restless, fingers reaching over to touch Blair, his thoughts coming out loud. “Come in the water, Blair,” he says. “It’s roasting.”

“Our suncream will come off,” she points out, tilting the rim of her hat off her face to look at him. There’s the beginning of freckles appearing on his nose and she can’t see his eyes through his glasses but she knows he wants to get moving. “Fine. I’ll paddle.”

“That’s not enough,” Harry disagrees, always knowing where to push. “Have to keep your body temperature cool.”

“Since when are you an expert?” Blair laughs, following him down the water regardless.

“Auror,” he calls over his shoulder. His hand stretches back for hers; when she takes hold he tugs her up alongside him.

“That’s your answer for everything,” she retorts. “Do they teach you the ways of the world there?”

“Something like that,” and then he’s picking Blair up, arms around her waist and walking into the sea.

She wriggles in his arms, this bikini is tiny, she’s not going to pull a C-list celebrity stunt and flash for the papers, but his grip is strong and despite her squeals and half-hearted protests she doesn’t hate him too much when he walks them further into the sea and lets her down in front of him. “I hate you,” she tells him anyway. “If this ruins my highlights --”

“I’ll fix them myself,” he promises which is what she was worried he would say. He falls onto his back and floats briefly, pulling himself back upright immediately, as though only testing that he could do it.

Blair can’t remember her first time in the ocean. There had been a summer in France when her dad had held her above his head as the waves came in and she remembers feeling she was flying over the crest, her arms spread wide. She watches Harry turn in a circle, the way he wriggles his feet in the sand, and when he dunks his head he licks his lips afterwards and makes a face.

“This is really your first time in the sea?” Blair asks, voice soft, because he’s lived three lifetimes already.

“The first time I’ve been here by choice,” he says simply and so mysteriously Blair has to bite her lip from retorting back. “Holidays have never really been a thing -- even after the war -- and if they were it’s never been to a beach. I’ve done a lot,” he adds, stepping in closer to Blair and picking her up. She goes with the movement as he walks them out a couple of feet further. “Just missed out on some of the really simple things.”

“I’ve never rode a bike,” Blair offers after a moment.

“Never?” Harry asks, that disbelief in his voice that she made sure she kept out of her own. He probably thinks she’s making it up to make him feel better.

“I never saw the point,” she shrugs.  

“I could teach you,” Harry says. “I snuck on my cousin’s a couple of times.”

“I’ll have a think about it,” Blair says, if only to make him feel better. Twenty years on she still doesn’t see the point.

“I love the sea,” Harry announces.

Blair’s head falls back, the ends of her ponytail dangling in the water. Her legs are locked around Harry’s waist; he’s got her if she floats away. When she pulls her head back up Harry’s looking at her through his sunglasses and his lips are curved into one of those soft smiles you don’t know you’re making.

When Blair kisses him he tastes like salt and gin.

 

.

 

Later in their cool hotel room Harry smudges kisses along her neck as his fingers work inside of her and Blair struggles to breath. He twists his hand and removes one finger before he moves down her body and replaces it with his mouth. He's good at this. He's quick and -- fuck. His tongue licks over her and dips in along with his fingers and _fuck_. Blair’s mind rewinds to Harry’s love of kissing and how completely wrong she was. This is his favourite thing. Her hand curls in his hair, holds him there, and when he moans into her she hurtles so close to the edge that her legs press together and she tries to hold off because if there’s one thing she’s learned is that an orgasm can never be too long.

“Blair,” he says, as her back arches and she can think of nothing else but the curve of his fingers and faster faster faster. He thumbs her clit once twice three times and then Blair’s gasping, twisting, and, honestly, fucking hell about sums it up.

“Blair,” Harry says again when her eyes have opened and she feels a little less like if she stood up her legs would collapse beneath her. “Thank you for today.”

“That’s a hell of a thank you for the beach,” Blair sighs, hand pulling at a strand of hair falling over his face.

Harry shrugs, shuffles back up the bed. He kisses her jaw, both of them sweaty, and Blair gives herself another few seconds of catching her breath before she runs her hand down his side and reaches for him. His hips buck at the contact and he looks so close already, a boy happy with making others happy, but he still manages to get out in a throaty voice that has Blair clamouring for more. “I had fun,” he says, and oh, that’s how simple it was.

Sometimes a beach is sunbathing and showing off your new boyfriend but sometimes it’s making up for missing out on a fundamental of your childhood.

Blair cups his jaw and kisses him as he comes, his hands steady on her waist and his body taut. He kisses her again and again, small kisses that linger when Blair pulls herself away for a drink of water.

She falls back into bed with Harry’s arm draping over her waist and his face burrowing into her neck. “Let’s go to the beach tomorrow,” she murmurs. Harry’s reply is a huff of laughter and his leg intertwined with hers. “Or we could stay here,” she adds, a yawn breaking apart her words. “I like here too.”

So they have a routine. That’s fine. That’s the whole point of this relaxing in Italy away from everyone you know thing. Blair gives herself up to the world. When she goes back to New York, whenever that might be, she'll do away with sex in the middle of the day and lounging on the beach, but for now she thinks she deserves to make the most of it. They can do whatever they want. 


End file.
